Enlightened Sports Fan

Saturday, November 24, 2018

Yesterday, I outlined my plan for realigning the FBS level of college football. One aspect that I neglected to address is the postseason bowl games. Under this new alignment system, the bowls currently designated as the New Year's Six bowls would now serve as the quarterfinal and semifinal rounds of the playoff, on a rotating basis. Higher-seeded schools would get first choice in terms of site selection for these rounds. The final would not be a bowl game but would remain as a designated national championship game. These playoff bowls are as follows:

Additionally, there would be 16 other bowl games that would not be part of the playoff. This would be a significant reduction in the number of bowl games, reflecting the reduction in the size of FBS. Bowl eligibility would still be determined by overall record. All of these bowl games would be played south of the 36th parallel, primarily in larger cities. Corporate naming rights for bowl games would be prohibited. The list of these bowls is as follows:

Friday, November 23, 2018

In today's college football landscape, the trend is toward increasingly consolidated superconferences. For instance, the last wave of realignment led to the expansion of the Big Ten, ACC, and SEC to 14 teams each, while the Pac-10 expanded to 12 and was renamed the Pac-12. These moves mostly came at the expense of the Big 12, which contracted to 10 teams, and the Big East, which split into a basketball conference and a football conference (the current American Athletic Conference). When the next wave of realignment comes (likely in the 2020s), it is quite possible that the ACC, Big Ten, SEC, and Pac-12 expand to 16 teams each, with the Big 12 possibly ceasing to exist altogether.

It is understandable why the so-called "power" conferences want to expand: more programs means more television markets, which in turn means greater television revenue. As just one example, how else could we explain the Big Ten's addition of Rutgers other than the desire of the Big Ten to expand into the New York City television market?

Whatever benefits the conferences and individual programs may accrue from these trends, I would argue that college football as a whole is negatively affected. Conference expansion has broken up traditional regional conference rivalries. Expansion has also necessitated the creation of divisions within conferences, leading to unbalanced conference schedules and lopsided outcomes in conference championship games. The concentration of the strongest programs in just a handful of conferences means that most games at the FBS level have little if any meaning in terms of determining a national champion.

On the other hand, one of the more positive recent trends in college football has been the creation of the four team College Football Playoff (CFP) to replace the old top-two BCS system for determining a national champion. The BCS itself replaced a system in which there was no national championship game at all and champions were determined purely through the highly subjective polls. However, the new CFP system still has glaring issues - at least one Power Five conference champion will not have a chance to play for a national championship in any given year, while it's still nearly impossible for a Group of Five school to make it in at all (as we saw happen to an undefeated UCF team last year). Even a potential expansion of the playoff to eight teams would not fully resolve the issues with the system - consider how much subjectivity would still go into determining the two at-large spots under that hypothetical scenario.

With these points in mind, I set out to completely revamp the FBS level of NCAA college football. The system I devised would be fairly simple: there would now be eight 10-team conferences, with the winner of each conference getting an automatic bid to an eight team playoff to determine the national championship. Each team would play a single round-robin against the other nine teams in its conference during the regular season, and the team with the best conference record would be named the conference champion. (Ties would be broken by head-to-head record.) No conference would be divided into divisions, and no conference championship games would be played. Subjective rankings would be used only to determine the seeds for the playoff. Even with the addition of an extra playoff round, teams would still only play a maximum of 15 games in a season due to the elimination of the conference championships. In addition to the nine conference games, teams would schedule three non-conference games, including a maximum of one game against an FCS opponent. With the contraction of the FBS from 130 to 80 programs, the other 50 programs (all of them Group of Five schools) would be dropped down to the FCS.

The conference alignment system I've created is based on historical conference affiliations, rivalries, geography, and program strength. The new conferences are summarized as follows.

The six italicized programs played in the Big East at some point in its history. Additionally, UCF currently plays in the American, the Big East's successor. Penn State sought to join the Big East in the 1980s when it was a basketball-only conference, but was rejected. Had it joined and then became a founding football member in the 1990s, the Big East may well have survived as a football conference. Maryland and Virginia have been cited as schools that may have followed Penn State into the Big East. There are a number of great intrastate rivalries here, including UCF-USF, Virginia-Virginia Tech, and Pitt-Penn State, as well as interstate rivalries like Pitt-West Virignia.

The eight italicized programs currently play in the ACC. South Carolina was a founding member of the ACC; rejoining the conference would make Clemson-South Carolina a conference game again. Florida would join in-state rivals Florida State and Miami, while the four North Carolina schools are able to maintain their rivalries.

Southeastern Conference (SEC)Kentucky, Louisville, Memphis, Tennessee, Vanderbilt, Ole Miss, Mississippi State, Alabama, Auburn, Georgia
The eight italicized programs currently play in the SEC. Louisville joins in-state rival Kentucky, while Memphis is given the opportunity to build rivalries with Tennessee and Vanderbilt and play in conference with rival Ole Miss. Great intrastate rivalries like Auburn-Alabama and Ole Miss-Mississippi State are preserved, along with interstate rivalries like Alabama-Georgia.Big Ten ConferenceOhio State, Cincinnati, Michigan, Michigan State, Indiana, Purdue, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa

The nine italicized programs currently play in the Big Ten. The only new face is Cincinnati, which would be given the chance to build an in-state rivalry with Ohio State. A number of great interstate and intrastate rivalries are preserved, including Ohio State-Michigan, Michigan-Michigan State, and Minnesota-Wisconsin.

The eight italicized programs were the original members of the Big Eight Conference. Tulsa would now be in conference with in-state rival Oklahoma State, while Arkansas could continue to build its rivalry with Missouri. Rivalries like Colorado-Nebraska and Missouri-Kansas are restored as conference games, while in-state rivalries are maintained in Kansas-Kansas State and Oklahoma-Oklahoma State.

The eight italicized programs were members of the original SWC. Bringing these eight Texas schools back together in the same conference would restore a number of in-state rivalries, including Houston-Rice, SMU-TCU, and Texas-Texas A&M. LSU-Tulane is also restored as a conference rivalry, while LSU would be able to maintain its rivalry with Texas A&M.

The nine italicized programs are current members of the Pac-12. Boise State would finally be given the opportunity to play in a major conference. A number of in-state rivalries are preserved, including Washington-Washington State, Oregon-Oregon State, Cal-UCLA, and Arizona-Arizona State.

This conference is no relation to the current American Athletic Conference. Instead, it is loosely based on the proposed "Airplane Conference" of 1959; the six italicized programs were part of that plan. This conference would bring the three service academies together in conference, as well as the seven private FBS schools of the west and north. Notre Dame, a long-time independent, would now have conference games against a number of its rivals, including Army, Navy, USC, Stanford, Northwestern, and Boston College. Meanwhile, Syracuse-Boston College and USC-Stanford are maintained as conference games. BYU, another large religious school and long-time independent, rounds out the conference nicely.

Overall, I believe this alignment would be a massive improvement over the current system. It would restore the geographic basis for conferences, bring back a number of historic conference rivalries, and potentially even create new rivalries. Having smaller conferences would reduce the concentration of the strongest programs in just a few conferences, bringing a degree of parity back to the college football landscape. Current Group of Five schools like Boise State and UCF would now have a legitimate chance to compete for a national title. Above all, conference championships would be given greater priority than subjective ranking systems, as winning the conference would give a program a bid in the playoff automatically - in other words, win and you're in. While it's highly unlikely that such an arrangement would ever actually come to pass, one can dream, right?

Thursday, December 29, 2016

Barry Bonds
Bonds is both the career (762) and single-season (73 - 2001) leader in home runs. He is also the all-time leader in walks and intentional walks. He won 7 MVPs, more than any other player. He was a 14-time All-Star, an 8-time Gold Glove winner, and a 12-time Silver Slugger recipient. During his career, he scored over 2200 runs, and came just shy of 3000 hits and 2000 RBI. He is the only player with 500+ home runs and 500+ stolen bases. Arguably the greatest player in Major League Baseball history, the only reason he has not already been inducted is his alleged PED use.

Roger Clemens
Clemens won 354 career games (9th all-time) and struck out 4672 batters (3rd all-time). He won 7 Cy Young Awards, more than any other pitcher. He was the 1986 American League MVP, and was a 2-time World Series champion with the New York Yankees (1999 and 2000). He was an 11-time All-Star, starting the game three times. Arguably one of the five greatest pitchers ever, like Bonds the sole reason he has not yet been inducted is his alleged PED use.

Ivan Rodriguez
The strongest candidate among the first-year eligibles, Pudge is one of the greatest catchers of all-time. He is the all-time leader among catchers in games played, plate appearances, at bats, runs scored, hits, and doubles. The 1999 American League MVP, he won a World Series title in 2003 with the Florida Marlins. He was a 14-time All-Star, a 13-time Gold Glover, and a 7-time Silver Slugger.

Jeff Bagwell
A lifetime Houston Astro, Bagwell was one of the greatest first basemen of all-time. He hit 449 career home runs, with over 1500 runs scored and 1500 RBI. Due to his tremendous hitting, he ranks top-25 all-time in OPS. He was the 1991 National League Rookie of the Year, and the 1994 NL MVP. He was selected to 4 All-Star games and won 3 Silver Sluggers, along with a Gold Glove in 1994.

Tim Raines
Raines was one of the greatest base stealers of all-time. He led the National League in steals in each of his first four full seasons, and ranks 5th all-time with 808 for his career. He also collected over 2600 hits and scored over 1500 runs. In 1986 he won the NL batting title, receiving a Silver Slugger award for his efforts. He was a 7-time All-Star and a 2-time World Series champion (1996 and 1998).

Curt Schilling
Schilling was one of the greatest strikeout pitchers of all-time, ranking 15th with 3116 for his career. He had three 300-strikeout seasons. He was also a tremendous postseason pitcher, going 11-2 with a 2.23 ERA in 19 career postseason starts. He won World Series titles in 2001, 2004, and 2007, and was named co-MVP of the 2001 series. He was a 6-time All-Star, starting the game twice.

Mike Mussina
Across his 18-year career, Mussina won 270 games, including 20 in his final season at age 39. He ranks in the top 20 all-time with 2813 strikeouts, and is 22nd in career strikeout-to-walk ratio. He was selected to five All-Star games, and received 7 Gold Glove awards. Although he never won the award, he did receive Cy Young votes nine times, including a runner-up finish in 1999.

Manny Ramirez
One of the game's greatest run producers, Manny slugged 555 home runs (15th all-time) and drove in 1831 RBI (18th all-time) during his career. A greatly feared hitter, he ranks 12th with 216 intentional walks. One of the greatest players in postseason history, he won the 2004 World Series MVP as he led the Red Sox to their first championship in 86 years; he won a second title in 2007. His popularity led to 12 All-Star selections and 9 Silver Sluggers. However, he was suspended for PED use toward the end of his career.

Edgar Martinez
Having spent his entire career with the Seattle Mariners, Martinez was one of the greatest designated hitters of all-time. A lifetime .312 hitter, he won American League batting titles in 1992 and 1995. He ranks 21st all-time with a .418 OBP, having led the AL in that category three times. He was selected to 7 All-Star games, and won 5 Silver Slugger awards.

Larry Walker
A lifetime .313 hitter, Walker was a 3-time batting titlist, all won while a member of the Colorado Rockies. In 1997 he led the National League with 49 home runs and 409 total bases, and was named NL MVP that year. He was selected to 5 All-Star games and won 3 Silver Sluggers for his offensive prowess. He also won 7 Gold Gloves due to his defense in right field

Monday, August 29, 2016

It is pretty rare nowadays for me to stumble across a quality major league player who I've never heard of, especially for players from recent decades. However, that is exactly what happened last night. In continuing to review Keith Hernandez's career, I took a look at the 1979 Cardinals, a team for whom he won the National League MVP. I noticed they had a young pitcher by the name of John Fulgham who had had a very solid season, going 10-6 with a 2.53 ERA in 146 innings. I then discovered he was a rookie that season, at age 23. Despite his numbers he did not receive a single vote for National League Rookie of the Year, an award won by Rick Sutcliffe.

Generally speaking, Fulgham is not a well-remembered major leaguer; a quick Google search did not turn up very much. Most of what has been written about him on the Internet regarded his supposed 39-pitch complete game on August 17, 1979, which if true would have been a major league record (it was not). Otherwise, these articles mostly just mention that Fulgham was a promising young starter whose career was cut short by a torn rotator cuff (an injury whose onset apparently produced a scuffle with Keith Hernandez).

In doing some more digging, however, I believe that no starting pitcher who was as good as Fulgham ever had so brief of a career. First, let's look at Wins Above Replacement. According to Baseball-Reference, Fulgham had 3.5 WAR in his rookie season, and 1.4 in 1980, for a total of about 5.0. As the table below shows, of all starting pitchers since 1901 with 5+ WAR in their first two seasons combined, only George Kaiserling, who pitched exclusively in the short-lived Federal League, also failed to pitch a third season:

Sunday, August 28, 2016

At first glance, Keith Hernandez seems like a pretty solid candidate for the Hall of Fame. He was both a good contact hitter (career .296 BA, 2182 H) and a decent on-base guy (.384 OBP, 1070 BB). He could both score runs and drive them in (1124 R, 1071 RBI). He was a batting titlist and MVP (both in 1979) and the starting first baseman for two World Series winning clubs (the ‘82 Cardinals and ‘86 Mets). He was recognized as one of the best players of his era, having been selected to five all-star games, winning two Silver Slugger awards, and receiving MVP votes in eight straight seasons. Sabermetrically speaking, he posted a 60.0 career WAR and a 128 OPS+, both of which are right at the borderline for a career first baseman. Above all, he is arguably the greatest defensive first baseman of all time, standing as that position's all-time leader in Total Zone Runs and backed up by his 11 consecutive Gold Gloves.

However, there’s seemingly one big problem: he wasn’t a power-hitter, despite playing a position largely defined by power. He hit less than 200 career home runs (162 to be exact), and his career ISO was only .140. He doesn't exactly look like your typical Hall of Fame first baseman. In fact, he looks more like a Mark Grace, or a John Olerud, or even a Will Clark, and those other non-power-hitting first basemen don’t exactly have a great track record of getting into the Hall. Accordingly, although Hernandez's name appeared on nine Hall of Fame ballots, he never received more than 10.8% of vote, nowhere near the 75% he needed for induction.

With that being said, one must consider the era in which Hernandez played. The 1970s and 1980s were not exactly the heyday of big-time slugging first basemen; in fact, it is pretty clear that there was a significant power drought at the position during this period. Taking a closer look, there were only three 40-home run seasons by a first baseman between 1969 (when Harmon Killebrew and Willie McCovey both won the MVP) and 1987 (Mark McGwire's rookie season). None of those seasons were by a career first baseman; the three players to do so were Hank Aaron and Carl Yastrzemski (traditionally outfielders) and Darrell Evans (who played much of his career at third base).

It wasn't as if there were no other players hitting home runs then. Overall, there were 27 40-home run seasons from 1970 to 1986. That means that only about 11% of those were by a first baseman. By contrast, the rate was about 28% (30 of 108) from 1920 to 1969 and a little under 32% (59 of 128) since 1987. Looking at the overall percentage of home runs hit by first basemen, that rate was at about 18-20% from 1969-1971, peaking at 22% in 1972. From there the percentage declined precipitously, falling to below 14% in 1983-84, before rebounding to over 17% by the end of the decade.

Looking at ISO numbers instead, we see a similar pattern. The ISO of the average first baseman was about 40-50% higher than the league average from 1969-1971, also peaking in 1972 at 57%. This number then also declined, to below 15% by 1984, then rebounding to over 30% within a few years. These trends are graphed on the chart below, with the red line representing the home run percentage and the blue line representing the relative ISO.

Additionally, we can see that this period was low on individual players with high ISO seasons, especially compared with other periods. The percentage of qualified players who had an ISO greater than .200 who were first basemen between 1973 and 1986 was only 17.5%. This was far lower than it was from 1920 to 1972 (24.7%) or than it would be from 1987 to 2015 (22.6%). As the next graph shows, this period saw more qualified first basemen with ISOs less than .200 than any other; indeed, Hernandez's MVP season of 1979 was the peak year.

In other words, Hernandez played in an era with few, if any, elite power-hitting first basemen. And among the group of primarily contact hitters, he was right toward the top. In terms of batting runs from 1970 to 1994, Hernandez was behind only Rod Carew and Eddie Murray, both of whom are already Hall of Famers (it should also be noted that Carew played second base through 1975). Over the span of his career, 1974 to 1990, Hernandez was just behind Murray (63.2) and ahead of Carew (54.0) in total WAR. Of all first basemen who played entirely in the second half of the twentieth century, Hernandez ranks behind only Murray and McCovey, and ahead of Hall of Famers Tony Perez and Orlando Cepeda.

Hernandez will never be placed among the ranks of Gehrig, Foxx, Mize, Greenberg, and McCovey who came before him, or McGwire, Bagwell, Thomas, Palmeiro, and Pujols who came after, but he doesn’t have to be to be a Hall of Famer. He did exactly what an elite first baseman of his era would be expected to do offensively, and that, combined with his all-time great defense, should be enough to put him into Cooperstown.

(As a side note, it would be interesting to see what cap he would be given on his plaque in Cooperstown were he to be inducted. His best seasons clearly came with the Cardinals, but he has generally been associated with the Mets in his post-playing career, particularly in being a part of the legendary Mets broadcasting crew alongside Gary Cohen and Ron Darling.)

Sunday, October 11, 2015

The bottom of the seventh inning was a disaster for the Mets last night. First of all, I seriously question why Noah Syndergaard started the inning in the first place. He had already thrown 101 pitches, it was the 7th inning, and Terry Collins had pretty much his entire bullpen at his disposal, having used only Clippard and Familia on Friday and with an off-day today. Granted, Syndergaard did strike out Yasmani Grandal, but Collins should have yanked him after the walk to Kike Hernandez. Instead, he let him face Utley, and that's where all the trouble started.

Despite Syndergaard's efforts to keep him on first base, Hernandez ended up stealing second base, and the now distracted and tired pitcher gave up a single to Utley. At which point Collins had no choice but to go to the bullpen. For the life of me, however, I can not understand why he went to Bartolo Colon. In a 1-run game, with runners on first and third and 1 out, what the Mets really needed was a strikeout. I don't care that Howie Kendrick was 2-for-22 against Colon; you don't put in a guy with 6.3 SO/9 who'd only made two relief appearances all year.

So no one should be surprised that Kendrick made contact. Daniel Murphy flipped the ball to Ruben Tejada at second base, at which point the game lost all sense of logic. While the run comes in to score, Utley barrels into Tejada as he is turning around to throw to first base. Utley is called out, and Tejada finds himself on the ground unable to get up.

As the delay continues for several minutes, Don Mattingly eventually comes out of the dugout to challenge the out-call at second base. (I seriously question whether the Dodgers would have challenged without this delay.) After review, Utley is called safe. (Which by the way wasn't really that clear of an overturn in my opinion.) This is inexplicable for several reasons. First, and most obviously, he never touched second base. The MLB's rationale that the umpire can award him the base because the call was wrong is total BS. Utley didn't miss second base because the umpire called him out; he never even made an attempt to touch second base because he knew he would be called out. That play at second base by Tejada, even if it wasn't technically a "neighborhood play", has pretty much always been called an out through baseball history. If Utley actually thought he had a chance to be safe he would have, you know, slid into second base. But he didn't. Plain and simple. Instead, Utley is essentially rewarded for taking out Tejada (note that Tejada never had an opportunity to attempt to tag Utley even if he didn't touch second base, while Utley went straight to the dugout even though he had ample opportunity to touch the bag.)

At the very least, Utley should have been called out, the game would have been tied, and the inning would have ended when Addison Reed got the next batter to fly out to left. But the inning continued, and the Dodgers ended up scoring three more runs (including one by Utley) to take a 5-2 lead. A completely deflated Mets team, who then learned that Ruben Tejada had broken his leg, had no chance after that.

And now, this morning, I see this rule:

"Rule 6.05 reads:

A batter is out when --

(m) A preceding runner shall, in the umpire's judgment, intentionally interfere with a fielder who is attempting to catch a thrown ball or to throw a ball in an attempt to complete any play:

Rule 6.05(m) Comment: The objective of this rule is to penalize the offensive team for deliberate, unwarranted, unsportsmanlike action by the runner in leaving the baseline for the obvious purpose of crashing the pivot man on a double play, rather than trying to reach the base. Obviously this is an umpire's judgment play."

and this one:

"Rule 7.09:

It is interference by a batter or a runner when --

(e) If, in the judgment of the umpire, a base runner willfully and deliberately interferes with a batted ball or a fielder in the act of fielding a batted ball with the obvious intent to break up a double play, the ball is dead. The umpire shall call the runner out for interference and also call out the batter-runner because of the action of his teammate. In no event may bases be run or runs scored because of such action by a runner."

Rules like these are designed to protect players from things like, I don't know, HAVING THEIR LEG BROKEN when someone leaves the baseline to break up a double play. Which is exactly what Utley did. He knew he was out at second, so he never even tried to reach second base. He "slid" (which is probably a generous term anyways) exceptionally late, when he was already parallel to the bag.

Clearly both of these rules should have applied. Take your pick. So, in reality, Utley should have been called out, Kendrick should have been called out, Hernandez should never have scored, and the game should have gone to the eighth inning with the Mets up 2-1.

And still, none of that would have changed the fact that Chase Utley broke Ruben Tejada's leg. Honestly, the worst part of this whole thing is that Utley didn't even have to do what he did. If he had just slid into second base, Kendrick almost certainly would have been safe anyway. Tejada would have had to make an essentially impossible throw to get him out at first base. And while Utley would have initially been called out, the Dodgers might still have challenged and gotten the call legitimately overturned. So the outcome would have been the same.